Illustrating Guided Reading Books

by Bill Helin

In my art career I have spent most of my time creating native jewelry, large wood carvings and painting cultural designs, all in the style of my Tsimshian Aboriginal ancestors from my fathers lineage. Commercial fishing was our main source of life until 1978 when I was injured on my boat and ended up attending a native art school for six months, which was the beginning of a wonderful cultural creative journey.

After learning how to make carving tools, design mythological animals and carve wood art, I ventured into the world of hand engraved story jewelry. I was very fortunate to learn from 3 different master carvers at the Ksan Native Art School in a little town in Northern BC called Hazelton.

As a young boy I was always drawing pictures. I would use a pen or pencil and draw on any kind of paper I could find. We were very limited with those resources back then, unlike now when we can draw on digital tablets and on a huge variety of papers. I had a vision for my creative future but it was never tied into my Tsimshian Indian Heritage, mainly because my dad married a Norwegian lady and there was a bit of a stigma towards the way most of society viewed Indians and the lives on a reservation. Our government made sure of this unusual cultural mistreatment and my dad wanted to raise a family that wasn’t going to be affected by prejudices of the world.

During my teens I was taught by my dad’s mother about some of the culture and she was always encouraging me to learn how to draw traditional Tsimshian art and maybe carve totem poles and canoes too. All of those things meant absolutely nothing to me but I was interested in some of the mythological creatures that Haida artist Bill Reid had drawn. I was more interested in cartoons and other fantasy art until fate shocked me into submission of a very amazing cultural journey.

Jumping ahead to 2013, I was far from going away to become a cartoonist or an animator for Disney in the USA and had already opened 4 different native art galleries and had my art go into outer space a couple of times, so NASA said. Now my reputation in the aboriginal art world opened up a 3 month totem pole carving project in Hong Kong as a resident artist at the Canadian International School there.

It was an amazing journey in an amazing city thousands of miles overseas from my home and family, keeping overly busy helped me not miss everyone too much until the last few weeks. I taught over 1800 students from 54 nations and was really hurting bad to the point of never wanting to carve wood ever again. Ya right, famous last words.

Just before I was finished the two 15 foot totems I was contacted by a long time friend of mine who lived in Nanaimo. Her name is Terri Mack. Terri and her husband had bought a book resource company and were looking for an illustrator to help teach children in the school system using advanced guided reading books.

I knew nothing about guided reading but was very excited to be contracted to illustrate the first set of books, 23, all written by Terri and two other authors. What a blessing to finally take my art on a new learning journey working with a team of brilliant enthusiastic retired teachers.

At first I was just overly saturated into the development of both human and animal characters and developing a design process that would better accommodate the writing visions of the authors. We all had so much fun fitting scenes together with their text and for them to see their writing come to life was truly a great thrill for me, fun and unique from all my other aboriginal art projects.

Like most of my new creative experiences through the years I was so caught up in my own creative glory that I missed the true educational essence of what I had been generously brought into, then I was awaken by founder Terri Mack about how guided reading works.

I knew the stories seemed very simplistic and sometimes repetitive, as some Doctor Seuss books are, but little did I know that each little guided reading book for kindergarten progressing towards young teens, had a planned learning continuum. The 3 authors had planned and dreamed about uniting on this exciting journey I was further impressed by the response our books received at our first education conference we attended in Vancouver, where most of the teachers and educators excitedly complimented and praised the ladies for finally bringing guided reading into the needed levels for students of all ages. It was impressive and exciting to witness such an enriching educational spectacle.

I had no idea how such simplicity could be so powerful. That was a big lesson for this detailed and busy minded artist to learn. Such an important project that was totally funded by the owners of Strong Nations Publishers, which is why we were able to produce a few hundred books in a five year period.

Last year I worked with a stuffed animal company called Plush Toys, located in Surrey, to produce some small stuffed animals and finger puppets that I designed to be similar to eight of my book characters. They are being used by educators to act out fun lessons and journeys with children at home, home schooling and public schools too.

My book writing and illustration projects have truly blessed my life in many ways and with so many children and teachers expressing their gratitude for all our hard work, it is more fulfilling than anything I’ve experienced in my 40 year art career. I also have a much deeper appreciation and respect for all the wonderful educators that I have met through all my school presentations, especially my three authors and friends at Strong Nations. ~

billhelin.com